WILMINGTON, Del. - A couple produces some evidence of exposure to products from named defendants but no evidence the products contained asbestos or that the work in question released asbestos, a federal magistrate judge in Delaware held Aug. 31 in applying the bare metal defense and recommending summary...

MIAMI - A court properly admitted an expert's testimony that cumulative asbestos exposures were sufficient to cause a man's mesothelioma, a Florida appeals court held Sept. 6 in differentiating the testimony from the opinion that every exposure leads to disease and affirming a $9 million verdict...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A judge improperly concluded that ambiguity in a contract provision governing how hundreds of asbestos plaintiffs would compensate their counsel overcame class action claims arising from the attorneys' imposition of an additional fee, the Alabama Supreme Court held Sept. 1 in once...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A federal judge in California on Sept. 5 suspended the upcoming trial date for a lawsuit accusing a scrap metal company of violating the Clean Water Act (CWA), agreeing with the defendants that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals' upcoming ruling in U.S. v. Robertson could...

DALLAS - A motion seeking to unseal Russell Budd's 1997 deposition involving a memo allegedly showing his law firm coaching clients for their own depositions should proceed to a ruling on the merits, an attorney told a Texas appeals court on Sept. 5 (Christine Cole Biederman v. Beverly Jean Brown...

SALT LAKE CITY - An engineer can proffer testimony that Chevron Pipeline Co. (CPL) spent approximately $4.4 million to $5.6 million in unnecessary costs when responding to two oil spills in 2010, a federal judge in Utah ruled Sept. 7, finding that he is qualified and that the methodology underlying his...

SALT LAKE CITY - A federal judge in Utah on Sept. 6 granted a motion for partial summary judgment filed by Pacificorp, doing business as Rocky Mountain Power, that precludes Chevron Pipeline Co. (CPL) from obtaining a portion of a settlement it paid to homeowners affected by a 2010 oil spill, finding...

CINCINNATI - A split panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 11 affirmed a district court's ruling and held that a lawsuit brought by residents of Flint, Mich., against the city and state environmental quality employees relating to the lead-contaminated drinking water crisis in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court on Sept. 13 agreed to decide whether the state requires a medical expert to weigh in on whether a lung cancer plaintiff qualifies as a "smoker" or whether the law simply requires those already recognized as smokers to submit an opinion regarding the role...

NEW YORK - The attorney representing a group of Ecuadorian residents who won an $18.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corp. for injuries, only to have it reversed, on Sept. 12 filed a letter with the presiding judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing that the company...

SEATTLE - A federal judge in Idaho did not err when excluding a man's evidence pertaining to his diminished capacity, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Sept. 13, holding that the storage of hazardous waste in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is a crime of general...

MILWAUKEE - The Sherwin-Williams Co. on Sept. 13 filed a statement of proposed material facts in Wisconsin federal court supporting its motion for dismissal of a lead-paint poisoning lawsuit against it and other former manufacturers of lead-based paint on grounds that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated...

BOISE, Idaho - A federal judge in Idaho on Sept. 15 ordered Atlanta Gold Corp. to pay $251,000 as a civil penalty for violating the Clean Water Act and pay $251,000 in sanctions for failing to comply with prior court orders requiring the company to limit the amount of arsenic and iron in discharges from...

NEW YORK - A New York appellate court on Sept. 19 vacated the stay it issued in July that halted implementation of the hotly contested case management order (CMO) governing asbestos cases in New York City (In re: New York City Asbestos Litigation, All Asbestos Cases., No. 40000/1988 782000/2017, N.Y...

NEW ORLEANS - Family members mistakenly signed away asbestos wrongful death claims based on their father's attorney's misrepresentations, and the failure to hire their own counsel should not be considered inexcusable neglect, plaintiffs told the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Sept. 18 (Essie...

NEW YORK - Northrop Grumman Corp. on Sept. 18 filed a brief in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that an amicus brief filed by parties interested in a groundwater contamination lawsuit is premised on "a fundamental misconception" regarding the limitations period for tort claims...

SALT LAKE CITY - A federal judge in Utah on Sept. 15 awarded summary judgment to a uranium mining company after refusing to challenge the validity of a state agency's findings that the company's radon emissions were excessive and in violation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) (Grand Canyon Trust v....

WOBURN, Mass. - A Massachusetts jury on Sept. 20 found a company liable under negligence and breach of warranty claims for its installation of asbestos-containing insulation and awarded a couple $7.55 million for a man's resulting mesothelioma (Gerald and Marjorie Sylvestre v. New England Insulation...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court should use an asbestos case to adopt the superior standard for reviewing evidence espoused in Daubert regardless of the constitutionality of the Legislature's attempt to do so and reject the opinion that any exposure to asbestos contributes to disease...

NEW ORLEANS - A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 22 found that a film tax credit company is ineligible to receive funds from the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Class Action Settlement because it qualifies as a financial services business that is not included in the...

NEWARK, N.J. - A federal judge in New Jersey on Sept. 21 cast aside defendants' concerns regarding a special master's ability to objectively oversee discovery in a case alleging that a company and its attorneys hid evidence of asbestos contamination of talc products from asbestos plaintiffs ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A federal judge in Alabama on Sept. 25 awarded summary judgment to BP Exploration & Production Inc. after finding that a man's failure to produce expert evidence linking his exposure to chemical dispersants used during cleanup activities following the oil spill in the Gulf...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on Sept. 21 granted preliminary approval to a $151 million class settlement between a water company and residents who contended that it had contaminated their groundwater with 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol...